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How to use Skype for more than catching up

Hello there weary internet browser, take a load off your keyboard and let’s chat. Today I’m not going to give you any step by step instructions on how to do a specific thing with Skype. Instead I’d like to take a step back and talk a little bit about what Skype is for.

We all know Skype is for keeping in touch with loved ones when we can’t see them face to face. We’ve all had “Skype dates”, where you set up a time to jump on a call with your friends or family and catch up on what’s new.

But not everyone realizes that over the past few years, we’ve also been working on lots of different ways to share moments with people over Skype. I first mentioned this a while back when we introduced the ability to send video messages from Skype.

Today I’d like to bring you up to speed on some of the ways we’ve recently improved your options for sharing moments in Skype.

Free group video calling

Group video calling has been a great way to share and create experiences in Skype for some time now. There’s something that changes when you expand a conversation past two participants. The conversation somehow becomes more of an event with a life of its own.

If you have no idea what I’m rambling about, try it out for yourself! Just get two or more friends you haven’t spoken to in a while and jump on a group video call together. It’s now free to use so there’s nothing to lose and so much to gain.

Like group video calling, the ability to transfer files in Skype has been around for quite a while now. But if you wanted to wing your latest holiday snaps over to a friend, you would both have to be online at the same time for the transfer to happen.

In recent releases of Skype for Windows Phone and Skype for iPhone, we have introduced the ability for you to send photos that can be viewed even when you’re offline. Depending on what version of Skype your friends are using, they’ll either see the photo in Skype, or receive a link where they can view it. So now you can even make your friends jealous while you’re sleeping in your beach cabin half way around the world.

Snap on Xbox

Not all experiences are had in the great outdoors, of course. Being a bit of a movie buff myself, there’s nothing much I enjoy sharing more with friends than watching a good film. So when we recently updated Skype for Xbox One to snap to other applications, it opened up a whole world of shared experiences from the comfort of your couch.

Faster start-up times on your phone

The last point is one which you might not have even noticed, but I think it’s really important when it comes to sharing moments. Why is it that so many more pictures get taken with phones than with big high-quality cameras these days? Because the best camera is the one you have with you. Smart phones changed the way we take pictures by being there right at the second we need them.

With that in mind, we’ve done a lot of work in the background recently to improve how quickly Skype starts up on your phone. We want Skype to be ready in a moment’s notice so that you can share even the most fleeting moments.

So next time you do something amazing, why not share it in-the-moment with your friends and family using Skype? Get the latest version now.

3 thoughts on “How to use Skype for more than catching up”

Hi. What’s the best way to teach others, an immigrant community for example with no to some prior experience in technology, how to video call? Do you have video call how-to’s in Spanish? Thanks in advance!